Collected Plays

by Serafin-wells, Michael Louis

• ISBN13: 9781631920929
• ISBN10: 1631920928
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-02-01
• Publisher: The Ginger Press

Summary

Indie publishers The Ginger Press present this collection of six new plays by Michael Louis Serafin-Wells- a winner of The London New Play Festival, New Voices West Honoree for Emerging American Playwrights and both a Verity Bargate and Heideman Awards finalist. This collection includes: DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (London Version, premiere - collaboration Finborough Theatre /Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) Synopsis: On the eve of the 1988 Presidential election, a group of activists, loafers, students and ex-punkrockers must ask: what are one's morals really worth when idealism becomes inconvenient? And where does one go when it's time to leave your youth behind? Their answer, with humor and humanity, makes a passionate case for the despair people feel in coping in a society they view as sick with greed and hypocrisy. Excerpt: "...All this was supposed to change in the 60's. It's twenty years later. What happened? Where are those people? They were going to make politics - and everything else - relevant. their big word, remember? The mainstream ate 'em up. they became as deaf as the generation they were dyin' to replace. Just look at the music, for one thing. Nothin' that came after they took off their big Koss headphones around 1973 mattered anymore. They stopped listening. They don't hear us. They got too busy inventing Classic Rock Radio and a national advertising strategy for The Gap. These people are not our friends!" SEVEN PAGES UNSIGNED (A New Voices West honoree - Best Plays from Emerging American writers; The Magic Theatre, San Francisco; Finborough Theatre, London ) Synopsis: December 21, evening of the Winter Solstice. "The Darkest Night of the Year". Still reeling from the suicide of one of their number, friends gather for an engagement party, escaping to the roof but unable to elude the difficult choices each of them now face. REAL REAL GONE (Produced in New York Off-Broadway and at LA's Road Theatre) Synopsis: Two men brought together by the sudden and coincidental deaths of their fathers on the same day five years before, meet on its anniversary in an abandoned cemetery, ultimately confronting the past, each other and themselves. THE "I" WORD: INTERNS (Produced in New York, Off-Broadway) Synopsis: Idealistic Clinton White House interns face-off after one of their number is dismissed for leaking inside info to the press. Finally coming to grips with their disillusionment when challenged by their superior, herself a one-time intern for Senator Robert F. Kennedy, they find a renewed sense of hope in "the lifetime of work" required to further their shared beliefs and the understanding those beliefs can and must overcome the frailties of any one individual. DETAIL (Winner of The London New Play Festival) Synopsis: Brother and sister meet in a bar the week before Christmas to exchange gifts and warily attempt coming to terms with the family from which they're both estranged amidst a sudden and secretive crisis. TWO FROM THE LINE (A selection for Best American Short Plays 2008 and produced in New York, Off-Broadway) Synopsis: Two men a get a little too personal watching a basketball game on television.

Author Biography

His writing praised by The New York Times as "LaBute territory with fresh angles and sustained tension", Michael Louis Serafin-Wells is a winner of The London New Play Festival, New Voices West honoree, ACT (Seattle)/Icicle Creek Theatre Festival resident playwright, contributor to Best American Short Plays (Smith & Kraus), winner Best Screenplay/Best Film honors at San Francisco's SC Independent Film Festival, two-time finalist for the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Heideman Award, inaugural recipient of a First Light commission from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and finalist for the Verity Bargate Award at London's Soho Theatre & Writers Centre. His plays have seen production, publication, workshops and readings in New York, London, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and elsewhere. Serafin-Wells made his professional debut in New York with "Real Real Gone" which The Star Ledger observed "heralds a new writer with an acute sense of language and a special ability to dramatize human behavior" and Variety pronounced as "the best of the bunch far and away – with language that laces the natural poetics of the street with erudition". His play, "District of Columbia", set in a cooperative house on the eve of the 1988 US Presidential election, first appeared (in an early version) off-Broadway before making its European premiere in a collaboration with The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and London's Finborough Theatre under the direction of Wilson Milam. Another full-length, "Seven Pages Unsigned" - developed with San Francisco's Magic Theatre under Artistic Director Chris Smith - was selected as a New Voices West honoree for new works from emerging American playwrights. The play's European premiere reunited Serafin-Wells and director Wilson Milam at London's Finborough Theatre as part of the company's "Vibrant" festival, curated by Finborough Artistic Director Neil McPherson in celebration of the theatre's 30th anniversary. Other works include "The "I" Word: Interns" about idealistic Clinton staffers, cited by Show Business as "ripe with political savvy" and The Village Voice for "handling the Beltway lingo with brains and Shavian brio!"; "Detail", winner of The London New Play Festival and produced in a new version in New York described by Bloomberg News as "sharp and thought-provoking" and "Two From The Line", hailed by The New York Times as "La Bute territory with fresh angles and sustained tension" and selected by Smith & Kraus for their "Best Short Plays" anthology. Serafin-Wells is a member of New York's Ensemble Studio Theatre,The Dramatists Guild of America and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. His work, as ever, is dedicated to the life and memory of his love and partner, Summer Lindsay Serafin (November 13, 1979 - March 18, 2011). "Love you forever. Goodnight, little sweetheart..."